Facebook is Finally Going to Stop Showing You Garbage Hoaxes

Your Facebook News Feed is, more often than not, full of fetid, steaming, click-projectile-vomiting garbage. And Facebook wants to change that! Its latest attempt at weaning out undesirables? Calling out dumb, viral hoaxes.

Starting today, anytime a significant number of users mark a post as a hoax, Facebook will add a little annotation noting that "many people on Facebook have reported that this story contains false information." So now, using the same method with which you'd previously mark stories as spam, you'll find an option to flag it as a dirty, dirty lie.

But Facebook isn't just counting these self-reported fallacies; it's also taking into account how many times a certain post is deleted (in crippling shame). Of course, Facebook isn't going to pull the post from our collective Feeds entirely. According to today's announcement:

This means a post with a link to an article that many people have reported as a hoax or chosen to delete will get reduced distribution in News Feed. This update will apply to posts including links, photos, videos and status updates.

Interestingly enough, though, Facebook claims that it won't be "removing stories people report as false" nor will it "review content and make a determination on its accuracy." In other words, anyone with enough tech savvy will probably be able to find a way to game the system, since Facebook won't actually be making its own value judgements.

The other potential little hiccup would come with people just marking news stories that they don't agree with as lies. But hey, at least its trying? [Facebook]